Princess Celestia, called Queen Celestia in one comic and early development, is an Alicorn pony, the co-ruler of Equestria alongside her younger sister Princess Luna (before their retirement in season 9), and the adoptive aunt of Princess Cadance. In addition to her responsibility of raising the sun, she is also a teacher to Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer at different times, often addressing Twilight as "my faithful student" while mentoring her. She has a pet phoenix named Philomena.

History -

Ruling Equestria: Princess Celestia is introduced in the prologue of the first episode during a narration of events that took place before the show's main timeline. Though she is not named at this point, the narration references Celestia as the elder of two royal sisters who ruled Equestria together and "created harmony for all the land." Of the two sisters, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun every morning, while the younger raised the moon at dusk. The ponies subject to the royal sisters played in the day but "shunned" and slept through the night, which made the younger sister grow resentful. She refused to lower the moon one morning out of a bitterness that "transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon." Harnessing the power of the Elements of Harmony, the elder princess (Celestia) reluctantly banished her sister "in" the moon for one thousand years, after which she took responsibility of raising both sun and moon. The sisters become reconciled in Friendship is Magic, part 2 and begin ruling together once again. In Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 1, Twilight Sparkle experiences a flashback to the moment Princess Celestia banished her sister to the moon. In an alternate timeline presented in The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1, Celestia leads the royal guards and Wonderbolts in a war against King Sombra and his Crystal Ponies. The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2 features two other alternate timelines: one where Nightmare Moon banishes Celestia in the moon, and another where Discord uses Celestia and Luna for entertainment

Prior to ruling Equestria: Celestia describes more of her history in The Return of Harmony Part 1. She tells Twilight Sparkle and her friends that before Princess Luna and she stood up to Discord, he ruled over Equestria, keeping it in a state of unrest and unhappiness. Celestia goes on to describe that after seeing how miserable life was for Earth ponies, unicorns, and Pegasi alike, she and Luna discovered the Elements of Harmony and defeated Discord, turning him to stone. Discord's spell is later broken because, as Celestia explains, "Luna and [herself] are no longer connected to the elements." In The Crystal Empire - Part 1, Celestia describes how she and Luna worked together to defeat King Sombra, turning him into a shadow and imprisoning him in "the arctic north." Twilight's Kingdom - Part 1 confirms that Celestia was an associate of the legendary Star Swirl the Bearded. After Star Swirl disappeared to imprison the Pony of Shadows in limbo, Celestia remained unaware of his reasons or whereabouts until the events of Shadow Play - Part 2. During the Pre-Classical era, Celestia and Luna were involved in the first defeat of the evil centaur Lord Tirek, sending the villain to Tartarus.

Summer Sun Celebration: The Summer Sun Celebration is first mentioned in the first episode. Twilight reads of the legend of the Mare in the Moon, who is set to return and bring everlasting night "on the longest day of the thousandth year"–the summer solstice–since her defeat, which is also the thousandth year of the Summer Sun Celebration. Princess Celestia sends Twilight to oversee the preparations for the celebration in Ponyville, where it's being held this year, also telling her to make some friends while she does that. Nightmare Moon claims to have been imprisoned for a thousand years, so this indicates that the first celebration happened after Luna was imprisoned. It is a celebration of Celestia imprisoning her and restoring the sun to Equestria. During a party, Spike reminds an irate Twilight that the ponies have to stay up all night in order to witness Princess Celestia raise the sun. Later, at the Ponyville pavilion, Mayor Mare holds a brief speech and introduces Princess Celestia, but she turns up missing, and Nightmare Moon appears in her place. Only at the end of the following episode does Princess Celestia reappear with the defeat of Nightmare Moon, and the sun subsequently rises. The Summer Sun Celebration is featured again in Twilight Sparkle's flashback during The Cutie Mark Chronicles. Twilight describes it as "the most amazing, most wonderful thing" she'd ever seen, which made her want to study as much as she can about magic. The event itself takes place in Canterlot, where eight royal guards play a fanfare for Princess Celestia, who comes on stage and flies up, raising the sun behind her. In the two-part season four premiere, the Celebration is featured and mentioned. Unlike the previous Celebrations, this represents not the defeat of Nightmare Moon but the return of Princess Luna. In The Summer Sun Setback, the Celebration is held for the last time, as Celestia and Luna feel no need to continue it after they retire, and Twilight creates a new holiday to replace it: the "Festival of the Two Sisters".

Overseeing Twilight Sparkles Studies: Princess Celestia refers to Twilight Sparkle as her "most faithful student" in the first episode, and Twilight is very proud of this fact. At the end of the second episode, Celestia tasks Twilight with staying in Ponyville with her friends and writing a weekly report about her studies of the "magic of friendship", which Twilight usually sends via Spike. These letters typically serve to illustrate each episode's moral for the show's viewers. During a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Princess Celestia witnesses Twilight's rare magical talents and takes her as a protégé. Lauren Faust has suggested that there is more to Princess Celestia than has been depicted of her in the series. Relating to the events in the flashbacks in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Celestia sensed that Twilight Sparkle was connected to the Elements of Harmony and arranged the dragon-hatching test for her; the time travel events of My Little Pony: IDW 20/20 follow. Celestia then raised and trained Spike, and subsequently assigned him to be Twilight's assistant;[9] see My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issue #40. In a flashback in Celestial Advice, Celestia sees Twilight progressing in her studies, but not so much in her social life, which leads her to contemplate how to further her studies. This leads her to her decision to send Twilight to Ponyville, a decision that she is, at first, rather hesitant about. Celestia has been present during an episode in a few cases, allowing for Twilight Sparkle or another pony to deliver the report to her in person. She arrives for a scheduled royal visit in Swarm of the Century, and meets the six main ponies outside of Ponyville where Twilight makes her report. She comes to celebrate the Running of the Leaves in Fall Weather Friends, and Twilight makes a brief report about friendship being more important than a competition. She also attends the Best Young Flyer competition in Sonic Rainboom, where Rarity delivers the report to her directly. She is present for a royal visit in A Bird in the Hoof, so she hears Twilight Sparkle's intended report from Fluttershy. Celestia makes a surprise cameo at the end of Feeling Pinkie Keen, dropping out of the sky to grab Spike's letter and then taking off just as quickly, confirming another one of Pinkie Pie's twitchy tail predictions. Celestia is asked to come to Ponyville by Spike in Lesson Zero, after Twilight, fearing that being unable to send a friendship report will have dire consequences, enchants a doll, causing all of Ponyville to fight over it. Celestia arrives and undoes the spell, then sternly asks Twilight to meet her at the library. Despite Twilight's fears, Celestia does not reprimand her, telling her that she should only send a friendship report if she learns a lesson. She also decrees that Twilight's friends may also send her friendship reports. Celestia makes a brief appearance in Sweet and Elite, showing Rarity to the room she will stay in while visiting Canterlot. She also displays awkwardness at Rarity fawning over her in thanks. At the end of the episode, she hears Rarity's friendship report. She next appears in It's About Time, passing by the "Star Swirl the Bearded" wing of the Canterlot library. She shows no signs of objection to seeing Twilight who had made an elaborate show of sneaking in, and compliments Twilight for her new hairstyle. Celestia presides over the wedding of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1 and Part 2, and monitors an anonymous threat that was made against Canterlot. The threat turns out to be an invasion by the changelings and their queen, who was already in Canterlot impersonating Princess Cadance. However, through most of the two-part episode, no one except Twilight suspects there's something wrong with Cadance. When Twilight brands the fake Cadance as "evil" at the wedding rehearsal, Celestia is greatly disappointed by her actions and agrees with Shining Armor's suggestion for Twilight not to bother coming to the wedding. Celestia sternly tells Twilight, "You have a lot to think about," before walking out on her with the others. However, after the exposure and defeat of Queen Chrysalis and the wedding ceremony, Celestia commends Twilight for persisting in the face of doubt and following her instincts in bringing Princess Cadance back, reaffirming their good relationship. In Magical Mystery Cure, Princess Celestia appears in a starry realm with Twilight Sparkle, revealing that she had sent Twilight the spell book of Star Swirl the Bearded as a test, which Twilight had passed by creating new magic. Just as Celestia starts singing, dozens of images float by, depicting Twilight's lessons and everyday studies, and she tells her about how it is time for Twilight to fulfill her destiny. Twilight, now having been transformed into an Alicorn, frets that she will no longer be Celestia's student. Celestia reassures her that she will still be her student but in "a different way" - that Celestia and the other princesses will also be learning from Twilight now, as well. She then arranges a coronation ceremony for Twilight, to crown her as Equestria's newest princess.

Personality-

Princess Celestia acts as a mentor to Twilight Sparkle. She often does not directly state her goals but rather gives the advice to help her student find the answers she needs. For example, she wrote a letter prompting Twilight to make friends in Friendship is Magic, part 1 when her goal was for Twilight Sparkle to find the Elements of Harmony. Despite being royalty, she often encourages her subjects to relax through the use of jokes and gentle questions. She also shows great patience with any inappropriate behavior towards her, as seen when Pinkie Pie snatches a cupcake from her at a party in A Bird in the Hoof. Princess Celestia displays a fun-loving side when she chuckles at the bottle of disappearing ink sent to her by Twilight in Griffon the Brush Off. In A Bird in the Hoof, while sipping from a constantly refilled cup of tea, she pretends to sip from her already full cup, causing Mr. and Mrs. Cake to overfill it. She watches with a smile on her face when Pinkie Pie devours one of her cupcakes, while Mrs. Cake gasps and drags Pinkie away. Celestia tells Twilight and her friends in The Best Night Ever, after they ruin the Grand Galloping Gala, that she always found the Gala awful and she was hoping they would liven it up. In Make New Friends but Keep Discord, Celestia invites Discord to the Gala for this same reason, and by the end of the episode, she declares it to be "the most fun Gala in years". While kindhearted and slow to anger, Celestia's patience does have its limits. When faced against the threat of Discord's return in The Return of Harmony Part 1, Celestia wastes no time in demanding that Discord return the stolen Elements of Harmony. Also, in Lesson Zero, when Spike makes her aware that Twilight inadvertently unleashed mass chaos onto Ponyville in her obsessive attempts to find a friendship report to send to the Princess, Celestia personally intervenes to undo Twilight's out-of-control spell. She sternly orders her student to a private meeting to discuss her actions but remains understanding, and at the insistence of Twilight's friends she agrees not to punish Twilight, instead asking them all to send her friendship reports only when the lessons make themselves apparent to them. In A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1, after Twilight furiously accuses imposter Cadance of being evil, Princess Celestia, along with the others, makes clear her deep disappointment in her student and walks out on Twilight after Shining Armor and the other ponies. But in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2, while displaying righteous rage to the newly exposed Queen Chrysalis, she eventually commends Twilight for her instincts that told her the imposter Cadance was evil. In Ponyville Confidential, the Cutie Mark Crusaders manage to get a hold of a photo depicting her eating cake in an unladylike manner for their Foal Free Press gossip column titled "Celestia: Just like us." At the end of MMMystery on the Friendship Express, she admires the cake made by the combined efforts of the bakers and overlooks Pinkie's attempts to gain her attention. Celestia can also be very forgiving. She does not admonish Fluttershy for taking Philomena without asking in A Bird in the Hoof. As mentioned above, she does not punish Twilight for the chaos she caused in Lesson Zero. In Keep Calm and Flutter On, she firmly believed that Discord could be redeemed, in spite of the trouble he had caused in the past. She mentions that fall is one of her favorite seasons in Fall Weather Friends while at Ponyville to celebrate the Running of the Leaves. In Celestial Advice, Celestia reveals that she once shared some of Twilight's anxieties as a teacher, having worried a lot over sending her pupil away to Ponyville and that Twilight wouldn't need her anymore after making her own friends. In A Royal Problem, Celestia is further revealed to have a tense relationship with her sister Luna. Despite her efforts to bring them closer with daily pancake breakfasts, their lack of appreciation for each other's royal duties creates a rift between them, and Celestia demonstrates more impatience and irritation than usual. In School Daze, she shows great trust in Twilight's ability to run the School of Friendship and restore good feelings between Equestria's kingdoms. In Between Dark and Dawn, Celestia shows a liking for exciting activities while on her vacation with Luna, such as ziplining and diving into the ocean, and shows boredom when Luna takes her to the theatre, or an art museum. During the song Lotta Little Things, she displays a love for stuffed animals, and later in the episode, is revealed to have trouble with maps, and suffer from alektorophobia (a fear of chickens).

Magic: The legend narrated in the first episode tells that Celestia raises the sun, and that she had raised the moon and stars in her sister's absence. A display of Celestia raising the sun is depicted in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, and the sunrise coincides with Princess Celestia's return in Friendship is Magic, part 2. Princess Celestia's cutie mark is a stylized sun, which matches her responsibility of raising the sun. Celestia is said to have wielded the Elements of Harmony on two occasions. The first is in the legend narrated in the show's first episode, which says that "the elder sister" [Celestia] used the elements to banish Nightmare Moon. The second is in The Return of Harmony Part 1, where Celestia says that she and her sister discovered the Elements of Harmony and used them to defeat Discord. In the same episode, Celestia further explains to Twilight and her friends that she and Luna are no longer connected to the Elements, and that Twilight and her friends have to face Discord with the Elements now. Both of the confrontations and using the Elements against Discord and Nightmare Moon are fully explained in minor detail in Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 1 and Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 2. Other than raising the sun and wielding the Elements of Harmony, Princess Celestia displays telekinesis in various episodes and in the show's opening sequence. Other instances of her using magic are in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, where she stops Twilight Sparkle's wild magic burst, and in Lesson Zero, where she dispels the "want it, need it" spell from a massive amount of affected ponies at once. Chrysali Celestia finds herself unable to overpower the magic of Queen Chrysalis in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2. Celestia attacks Chrysalis with a beam from her horn, and Chrysalis retaliates with a beam of her own, which repulses Celestia's beam. However, this instance of Celestia being overpowered was because Chrysalis's own magic had been augmented by her feeding on Shining Armor's love for Princess Cadance. In The Crystal Empire - Part 1, both Celestia and Twilight use some magic that surrounds their horn with black fog and makes their irises glow red and their eyes glow green and emit a purple trail, much like King Sombra's usual appearance. The magic causes black crystals to grow from the ground, again in the same fashion as King Sombra's magic. Celestia says this demonstrates what would happen if hatred and fear took hold of the Crystal Empire. When Twilight uses this magic, she mentions to Spike that she learned it from Celestia. In addition, Celestia used her magic alongside Luna to turn King Sombra to shadow and banish him within the ice of the arctic north. In Twilight's Kingdom - Part 2, Princess Celestia performs a magic-transferring ritual with Princess Luna and Princess Cadance to bestow their power upon Twilight Sparkle. When the task is completed, Celestia loses her cutie mark and much of her strength. She regains both of these following the Mane Six's victory over Lord Tirek and the return of Equestria's stolen magic. In Make New Friends but Keep Discord, Princess Celestia is unable to stop an out-of-control Smooze with her magic. In A Royal Problem, Starlight Glimmer instinctively switches Celestia and Luna's cutie marks. This also causes an exchange of magic auras and magical abilities, with Celestia gaining Luna's ability to visit the dream realm. In The Beginning of the End - Part 2, she, Luna and Starswirl the Bearded use magic to control the Everfree Forest after it grows out of control following the Tree of Harmony's destruction, having previously done so before the Tree of Harmony was planted. In The Ending of the End - Part 2, she, Luna and Discord turn Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow to stone without the Elements after their defeat.